Normally, I do not promote fwd-ed SMS-es and mails, but yes'day I received an SMS, which I realy really liked. It transported me back to the college days with friends and the great care-free, fun n masti fraught times we spent together spiced with occasional spurts of sentiments ...

Here it goes -

Life means:
A winter evening, Four friends, Mild rain, 4 pegs of rum...

Life means:
100 bucks for petrol,two rusty old bikes, an open road...

life means:
Maggi noodles, a hostel room, 3:25 am...

Life means:
1 prep leave, 1 night, 1 book and 4 duffers...

Life means:
1 girl, 1 number, 4 friends and a fight...

Now life means:
Old friends, separate cities, separate lives and endless efforts to earn...

Happy to be your friend !

I love my friends spread across the world. Miss those days...
:)

Recently, I was told by my friend about the plagiarism done by the computer magazine "DIGIT". Along with a few other freebies, they shared a few wallpapers. One of them is -



The interesting part is that, this snap is a direct rip-off of the theme of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indore's annual Inter b-school Fest - IRIS 2005. A snap of the same is -



My friends from IIM - Jassi and Sharma were the master-minds behind the same. I feel sorry that their efforts are been dawned by someone with no credit to them. They do deserve acknowledgment on the same to say the least and a reputed magazine like DIGIT should not be doing this.

Its too strange a co-incidence otherwise!
What do you think?

:)

Today in office, we had a discussion in our team regarding the safety that we as citizens have in Bangalore. Especially, in cases where people like us who have moved out of their home towns/cities and are working here in bangalore.

One of my colleague had an incident where he was harrassed by a localite due to a minor nudge of their vehicles, worse even due to the other guys' fault. The person is from a wealthy background owning a few flats and land in the area. Without even acknowledging or talking, the guy simply started thumping the glass window of my friends car. On opening the window, he started abusing and even hitting. My friend sitting along with his wife measuring the heat of the situation, did not react back violently but felt helpless in this harrowing situation that too for no fault of his. clearly, he could not have approached the police as it happened in a street. though i have doubts that police would have helped considering the guy's contacts with the police/goons owing to his real-estate presence.

This is just another situation, that the people would be facing and i dont see any clean answers. I am not trying to sound cynical, but this is an off-shoot of the asperity locals have against the people coming from other states. The state security system provides no solace. The people around are not quite bothered thinking "mainn is chakkar mein kyun padoon (why should i get involved in this mess)". This ignorance from us is adding to the sorry state of affairs. Traffic sense is quite missing and the traffice police is not of much help either (besides counting their money in the corner of the road).

As a citizen, i feel that basic sense of security is non-existent and even worse, I dont see anything being done to re-store the same.

Demand for service in bangalore is so high that the standard of supply is going down. Restaurant bookings change without informing, infrastructure is in a sad state - I hope metro changes the scene here. Autowallah charges extra, meters are all running at Usain Bolt's speed, autowallahs refuse to go for no reason - no redressal and the police does not interfere either.

Another colleague of mine was returning from US to bangalore. His flight landed at 3:00 am at BIAL. A taxi service in bangalore - MERU, its driver says he will charge 1.5 times and will not give receipt for the same. all-in-all, the concept of customer/public service is being completely defeated in bangalore.

All-in-all, things are not quite hunky-dory as it seems from outside. I am sure similar problems would be in most other cities too, but for now, I am facing them here. Quite a relief, its raining great here and the climate is simply awesome...
:)

Someone has rightly said, " Men are not interested in what’s coming on TV albeit, what ELSE is coming on TV."

Honouring this statement, i am in a habit of switching channels rather than sticking to a single one.
But to confess, today I enjoy watching advertisements more than breaking my head over K-series, watching the television stars play games/dance/sing, daily repeat movies on Zoom/Zee cinema/HBO or watching rakhi sawant interview celebs (watching her i guess even my neighbour 100 kg aunty can have a tv show to her credit too, considering her chatting skills).

Observing the ads, I see that the common vehicle for ads these days is towards feel good/light-humour. Tata Sky showing modern junta turning religious (nahin dude, yeh paap hai...wala), scooty pep (tennis edition), Virgin mobile(chagan, girl mentioning to parents that she is not interested in boys), AXE (showing attracting women in light humour), kurkure (tedha hai par mera hai).....
For confectionaries the vehicle is pre-dominantly either humour (perfetti pdts, cadbury's) or woo-ing women (minto-fresh). Even for washing powders (Ariel 10/10 with women dancing after washing) brings out washing as fun.
BSNL did not have to try very hard, as they ended up making a stupidly-funny ad (Preity Zinta -kya aapkhe ghar mein BSNL landline nahin hai - dad, main is ghar mein shadi nahin karungi). Also some pdts are using spoofs of movies and characters via e-marketing, having comedy written all over it (simpu singh for channel V, Airtel exploring this channel too).

Recently, I see a sea change in insurance ads (not sure if due to age I am focusing more on them). Keeping the vehicle as light-fun these ads are all pitching to bring out the fear any individual has with age (wife thinks husband is dead while he is taking a nap in a chair> and inducing people to live out of their fears - Sahara-life (gabbar wala ad). Seems I do need to start in life-pension-funds too bharti-AXA(all the P&C w.r.t life possible).

I only hope this exciting trend grows and we see more fun and laughter around when I open my television and browse through channels to see what else is coming...
:)

Recently, I have been doing some arbit shayari. Thought it would be good to share with everyone, afterall why to bear the pain alone...
:)
Arz kiya hai -

Baat us baat mein kya, jo ek baar mein bata na paye
na chhu sake dil ko, rooh ki khidkiyaan khol na paye
haal-e-dil bayaan na ho, ashaas samjha na paye
bewkoof hai woh banda-e-khaki, jiski baat ek baar mein bata na paye

Baat to us baat mein hai
jo mann mein kasak jagaye, adhron pe muskaan le aaye
zaar kar de sansarik dimaag ko, dil ko sochwa jaye
aapke dil mein dabi chah(at) ko, naw-ba-naw roop de jaye

Let your critical words flow...
:D

Recently, I was discussing with a couple of colleagues about the importance of pursuing a physical activity in life. The intention is to stay fit and feeling energetic just as we used to feel, during school days in the sports periods and summer camps.
A lot of options were thrashed - playing badminton (which i already do), swimming (due to rainy season got ruled out), joining gym (too much of effort for making it a routine!), learning Krav maga (arbit!), yoga (too nimble)..... ..... .....
Finally somehow, group-shift happened towards JOGGING! It was interesting to hear the arguments on something i had not cared to think about. The contrarians had the opinion that - morning jog is not possible as most of us do not have access to a park. Those who had access to a park, ruled it out because of timing and population issue - it was too crowded between 6:00-8:00 to even complete a full circle before bumping into 50 people and getting sandal-ised. Now, jogging on streets was debated for pollution. Air pollution and pollen problem (esp. in morning) in bangalore is large that makes jogging on the streets/pavements difficult. Imagine cars/ trucks passing honking and painting the air black one after the other, that too when you are breathing hard during the run.
It may sound like a paranoia and maybe junta is over-exaggerating the situation (though its not any good either). But if this is any concern for the enthusiasts, it is a serious situation to be into.

Of course the bedridden-not-so-enthusiastic ones escaped out stating hard surface of the roads would hurt the ankles
:)